'Smash,' galas and other theater buzz

A quick look at events coming up on stage and screen

The Tony Award-winning musical "Memphis," whose Broadway production was developed at La Jolla Playhouse in 2008, returns to town next year as part of Broadway/San Diego's touring-show season.
— Joan Marcus

The Tony Award-winning musical "Memphis," whose Broadway production was developed at La Jolla Playhouse in 2008, returns to town next year as part of Broadway/San Diego's touring-show season.
/ Joan Marcus

• La Jolla Playhouse artistic director Christopher Ashley might've been a little surprised to see the title of the musical gracing New York's Shubert Theatre marquee on NBC's "Smash," the new TV series about the making of a fictional Broadway show.

In the program, the Shubert is home to something called "Heaven on Earth," a hit musical by Tom Leavitt (Christian Borle) and Julia Houston (Debra Messing) - the same team working on the Marilyn Monroe musical that's at the center of "Smash."

In real life, the Shubert continues to host "Memphis," the Ashley-directed hit that launched at the Playhouse in 2008, moved to Broadway in 2009 and won the best-musical Tony Award in 2010. (Another local connection among several in "Smash": Borle starred in the Playhouse's original workshop version of "Peter and the Starcatcher," which itself is hitting Broadway next month.)

At any rate, on the subject of "Memphis": A filmed version of the musical is scheduled to air nationally next Friday (Feb. 24) on PBS-TV, as part of the "Great Performances" series. Locally, though, the program won't air until 12:30 p.m. April 1 on KPBS-TV.

Meantime, the national touring version of "Memphis" is still scheduled to hit downtown's Civic Theatre (via Broadway/San Diego) in July.

• Gala Watch 2012: The Playhouse has announced that screen and stage star Peter Gallagher (now appearing in the series "Covert Affairs") will headline the theater's annual gala, scheduled for March 9. He replaces the previously announced headliner, Megan Mulally.

And the Globe has announced that Tony-winner Lea Salonga ("Miss Saigon") will perform at its gala, set for July 28. Salonga is one of the stars of the upcoming "Allegiance," a musical about World War II-era Japanese-American internees; it has its world premiere at the Balboa Park theater this fall.

• One Globe-related add: The stage version of "The King's Speech," the story that was turned into an Oscar-winning movie in 2010, has been touring Great Britain to such acclaim that it's deemed likely to land on London's West End soon, with a possible transfer to Broadway eventually.

The play's director? Adrian Noble, now in his third season as artistic chief of the Globe's Summer Shakespeare Festival.